This working paper – written for inclusion as a chapter on Japanese society, to be
published in Chinese by the Beijing University of Foreign Studies later in 2011 – looks at
popular culture as a form of cultural production. It argues for the need to study popular
cultural forms like advertisements, ceramics, fashion magazines and folk art as both
products and as processes of design, manufacture, distribution, appreciation and use, which
must all be taken into account. Precisely because popular cultural forms are both cultural
products and commodities, they reveal the complementary nature of the two categories of
culture and the economy. The paper outlines and analyses the different ways in which
social, cultural, symbolic and economic capital are converted by those participating in
advertising, ceramic, fashion magazine and folk art worlds, and suggests that popular
culture may best be seen as a name economy.